A day later...

A stream of energy shot through her meridians as finally, she broke into the 8th stage of body cultivation! Perhaps irresponsibly, after facing the bottleneck of the 7th stage, she decided to use a quarter of the elemental essence to rush through it.

In the face of such potent medicine, the 8th stage, which would have taken days to conquer otherwise, was breached in just an hour.

Mei was aware it would be more logical to save the elemental essence to speed through tougher stages in the future... but she was feeling a little impatient. "Resolutely," she told herself she wouldn't use the remaining essence until she reached the equivalent of Foundational for body cultivation, the Spirit Body realm.

She felt rather jittery as she got out of the tub, but she quickly dressed and headed straight for where she remembered the sect leader's "question room" was, back when the disciples bothered him for appraisals.

The door was locked.

Mei peered into the window and saw that it was dark within. From the looks of it, she had a feeling the sect master hadn't been there in a while.

Of course. Why would he spend his time there if he wasn't available for questioning?

She activated soulsense, deciding to bother one of the passing spirits.

"Hey! Do you know where the sect master lives?" she stopped a rather big yellow spirit.

"I'm busy! Go bother someone else!"

"Hey! Do you know-"

"Piss off!"

Grrr... these spirits were so rude.

Out of spite, Mei was about to start asking every spirit in sight until one of them finally told her, but it occurred to her that the spirits might spread bad rumours about her. Which wouldn't be ideal if she ever tried to recruit more spirits. It was already hard enough as it was. Honestly? She was probably just going to find another "newborn" spirit like Su Qing.

Mei headed downstairs and went to ask the outer disciples lounging about it instead, but it didn't seem like they had much clue either. So naturally, she decided to go bother one of the elders and ask them instead.

After going to the closest elder residence to ask around, she was told the elder was at the festival. Of course.

Did this mean the Sect Leader was also running around somewhere in the festival? How was she even going to find him if it was like that?

She then realised that she could just wait outside the front door until he came back.

With that backing her up, she decided to go ask around in the festival... and the first elder she found was Qiao Shun. She really didn't want to ask him of all elders.

Sitting before a counter with a bored look, he was running a shop selling formation plates... that contained little illusions of the sect master. Most of them would give lectures on various topics, but there were a few oddities. There was a formation plate that would summon a mini sect master to fight for the owner or do chores, and another was supposed to summon a dancing and singing sect master...

Mei began to wonder if this festival was actually kind of disrespectful.

She looked at their prices tags and saw to her horror that most of them were more than 100 Jade. Even the stupid dancing one was 50 Jade. What a ripoff!

Unsurprisingly, no one was queuing, so she was able to approach easily.

"Um, Master Qiao Shun. I-"

"Since when were you my apprentice?"

Grr... she was just trying to be respectful!

"Okay okay! Mister Qian Shun, I'm trying to look for the sect master. Do you know where is he?"

The elder looked thoughtful for a moment.

"You've reached the 8th stage and are looking for him, I see. Unfortunately, I have no idea where he is, but you can wait for him outside his residence."

Qian Shun seemed to have the same idea.

"And where is that?"

"Lend me your token for a moment."

After receiving the token from her, he tinkered with it for a bit before handing it back.

"It's a bit far away, so just teleport there. I was going to sell you a charge, but it seems you already have 5."

Mei silently thanked Senior Han.

High up on a mountain, a palace of white jade stood. Several tall spires adored it, as if it wasn't already high up enough. On the roofs, statues of stone dragons could be seen decorating it, some even curled up around spires.

A massive gate a staggering 20 metres tall stood, rows and rows of stairs leading up to it, 10 metre tall stone lions sitting on pedestals on both sides.

All of it was covered with snow. Which also meant a very cold Mei.

Shivering, she felt a little out of breath. And perhaps a tiny bit lightheaded.

To think the sect master would have a residence like this! From her impression of him, she thought he would have a relatively humble mansion, much like one a richer mortal would have.

Truly, looks could be deceiving.

She felt like she could understand him on some level though. Admittedly, it did look cool. Though she would never want to live in a place like this.

Mei went up the stairs slowly and touched the front door. It was so cold... she felt like she was going to become a block of ice. Why did the sect master have to set up in this inconvenient location?

She paused to rub her hands together, but it didn't help. It seemed like her plan to wait here wasn't going to work out if he wasn't home.

So... where exactly was the doorbell? She didn't think she would make any noise knocking on solid jade.

She kicked the door grumpily, confirming her theory.

Suddenly, the sound of rumbling stone and falling snow rang out behind her. To her alarm, she turned to see one of the stone lions had staring at her! Her heart began to speed up as she prepared to activate her token. That stupid Qiao Shun! Why didn't he warn her?

Just before she could activate it, the lion opened its mouth slightly and gently blew warm air at her, knocking her backwards into the door and making her drop the token.

"Disciple. Do you have an appointment with the sect master?" it spoke into her mind.

Somehow, the air seemed to warm her completely in an instant, making her feel a lot better. She felt a bit silly and looked down in embarrassment, before picking up her token. What? No, she didn't need to feel bad. Mei thought about it a little more and decided that her being afraid was nothing to be ashamed of considering it was a huge stone lion. If anything, wasn't she being pretty brave?

Though admittedly, even now, she felt a bit uneasy.

"Thank you. No, I don't have an appointment."

"Oh. I'll inform him of your presence then." the lion said.

With that, it resumed its previous pose, using qi sense to put back the snow that had fallen off its head.